Last few weeks I seem to be getting lots of blank expired messages, or threads missing their original posts, and also some followups. Anyone else seen similar?
(just connected via eternal september, and they all show up)
Yes, I can't see some of my original posts (but I can see that they arrived because they appear in follow-ups. This is Plusnet.
I read most groups via NIN, but for the few that I do read via GN/PN, yes I see quite a few replies to messages which I have not seen, and when mentioned others have confirmed the same.
Yes, it's shit. aioe is OK.
ok not just me then...
I have posted a comment to plusnet.support.customer-feedback, which looks pretty quiet these days! See if that gets a response.
They are showing up on PN's (outsourced) news server but very late. Some posts from 30th November are only just arriving.
I have just swapped over to eternal september. After a bit of a faff (some of it RTFM, but it didn't help that I reset a Plusnet password that I did not have recorded) I'm up and running again.
Yes, yes and yes. Plusnet newsserver is inconsistent and unreliable these days. Are they doing it on purpose?
Which considering it is outsourced to giganews who are supposed to be a premium provider, is a bit surprising...
It does make you wonder. Not many ISPs left that offer usenet as part of the deal.
I think they're flagging, they don't add new groups any more (or they claim they do, when they haven't) even Bob had no joy getting them to do it.
Rumour is that PN are "considering" the future of email after their recent issues, maybe they'll "consider" usenet too?
When I was on Plusnet some years ago (before the BT takeover) I tried to get some groups added. Giganews wouldn't even talk to me because I wasn't their direct customer; everything had to go through PN (Bob Pullen was PN's man in the middle stuck with that chore). Anyway, that was why I jumped ship and went to another ISP.
Yes.....
Virgin media dumped their news server not that long ago (circa 18 months?) which was outsourced out to a 3rd party.
So I switched to AIOE and Eternal september....
I am now with Vodafone gigafast and they don't provide newsgroups so I stayed with AIOE and Eternal September
I wonder how much longer Newsgroups will exist....
I see quite a few missing on other servers, but not Eternal September. Maybe it is dependent on the feed they use? Brian
because of some details I gave to GN, they seemed to believe I was one of Bob's colleagues, and said they would add the groups, then said they had added them, but no such thing. Eventually Bob tried himself, and I think he gave up, I didn't push it as NIN is my main news server.
I think it's my free /29 block that stops me leaving
Part of the problem is that for many that do know about usenet these days, they think its an alternative to bittorrent for pirating stuff. Which presumably makes many ISPs somewhat more cautious.
(not to mention it's and easy cost overhead to trim)
Back in the days when I used to run a a pair of (very slow) ADSL connections with different ISPs for each. I could expect broadband faults on each line at least once a year (we are a very long way from the exchange) Fortunately only once in 10 years did I have a fault on both at once. So PN with their reasonable UK based support was a good partner alongside my other ISP. Usenet access was a nice addition from my point of view.
Fast forward to the last couple of years where we finally got FTTP, which PN does not yet offer, the PN line has been relegated to usenet access only (the connections are behind a load balancing router - who's rules basically say WAN2 for everything unless it is usenet!), and internet backup plus a phone line.
As backup internet <= 2 Mbps has very limited usefulness, and the days of POTS are numbered. About the only other useful bit is the static IP.
Without usenet there is some doubt if retaining the broadband is worth it. Perhaps if they finally get a FTTP offering (which I see mention of for H2 2021)?
I wonder how many times Openreach end up making two FTTP drops to the same customer?
Also with FTTPs massive improvement in reliability one might argue that the need for a backup service is less critical if you have a business contract on the service with a decent SLA? Although there is some merit in having a separate service that does not rely on the same back end infrastructure all the way, there would be quite a bit of commonality[1] with 2 x FTTP
[1] Although both ADSL lines were openreach, by fluke rather than planning, the wires followed a different path from the exchange.
I use Eternal September as my primary NSP and find it pretty good, provided you can tolerate the occasional brief glitch. IMO there is a slight stigma attached to posting on aioe; as it does not require registration it tends to attract trolls and miscreants.
A cheap and viable alternative to both of those is a non-expiring block account from a binaries NSP such as Blocknews or Astraweb. A $5 block would last you a lifetime if used only on text groups.
I am accessing this via ES at the moment. So far so good...
In one other way also an improvement - since the PN service was only accessible via their broadband it meant I still had to use the slow ADSL service to access that rather that the (two orders of magnitude faster) FTTP connection. (although to be fair 2Mbps is more than adequate for news access - although you do notice the difference if you need to refresh the list of available groups).
Yup, fair point.
I think that's slipped to H1(?)2022
They do make multiport ONTs, intended for e.g. small blocks of flats, or home+business situations, so one 2.5Gbps fibre can provide connections to multiple PPPoE routers, e.g.
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